The Clippie Girls

by Margaret Dickinson

  Peggy turned pale. ‘Can’t you reason with him, Rose? Can’t you stop him? You’re round at his place now more than you’re at home.’

  Rose fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘I’m only trying to help them. His mother’s at her wits’ end.’

  ‘I’d better go round . . .’

  ‘You’ll keep away. You’ve done enough damage already.’

  Grace and Mary overheard the sisters quarrelling, but neither said a word. There was nothing they could say.

  The atmosphere in the Price household was no better. Amy stormed at her brother and beat his chest with her fists, until he caught hold of her wrists and held her tightly.

  Above her wailing, he shouted, ‘I haven’t even kissed Sylvia – not properly – so how on earth she’s got the stupid idea that we’re getting married, I’ve no idea.’

  Amy stopped her shrieking and stared at him. ‘Yes, you have. At the New Year’s Eve dance the year before last. We all saw you.’

  Terry laughed. ‘Her and half a dozen others. Get real, Amy. I’ve never led her on.’

  ‘You’ve taken her out. Dancing and to the pictures. Don’t tell me you didn’t sit in the back row.’

  ‘We didn’t – and if she’s said different, then she’s lying.’

  Amy gasped. ‘Are you calling my best friend a liar?’

  ‘If she’s told you such stories, then, yes, I am. Amy, listen to me. I’ve always been good friends with Sylvia and, yes, I’ve gone out with her, but only as mates.’

  ‘Well, she thinks it was more. A whole lot more.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry – very sorry – and I’ll go myself right now and tell her so. And her mam and dad too.’

  ‘I think you’d better, but I reckon you’re in for a bloody nose from her dad. Maybe from her mam too. I wouldn’t fancy facing Mabel Thomas when she’s in a temper.’

  ‘I’ll go now – get it over with.’

  A tearful Sylvia opened the door to his knock. ‘Is it true?’ she demanded at once, without even a pleasant greeting. ‘Have you got a new girlfriend?’

  ‘Sylv, let me come in and explain. There’s been a misunderstanding.’

  For a brief moment, hope lit her eyes. ‘You mean, you haven’t? That we’re still . . .’

  ‘Let me come in.’

  They sat on either side of the kitchen table, staring at each other for a long moment before Terry took a deep breath. ‘Look, Sylv, we’re friends – always have been and I hope we always will be, but you’ve read much more into it than it is. I’m sorry – real sorry – if you thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but we’re not. Never have been, in my mind. Just mates, that’s all we are. Blimey, Sylv,’ he laughed, trying hard to get her to see his point of view. ‘Don’t you reckon I’d’ve been kissing the face off you and – ’ now he grinned saucily at her – ‘wanting a whole lot more.’

  Sylvia gazed at him with a doleful expression. ‘And is that what you got from her the other night in your mam and dad’s house? A whole lot more?’

  Terry’s face darkened at once. ‘That’s none of your business.’ His tone softened again. ‘I’m sorry if you’re hurt – if I’ve done anything to make you think there was something more between us than just being friends, but—’

  At that moment, Mabel came in by the back door, loaded with shopping bags. ‘This rationing is getting worse. How we’re supposed to feed our families on—?’ She stopped abruptly when she saw who was sitting at her kitchen table. ‘Oh, it’s you. Well, young feller.’ She dropped her shopping bags onto the table. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

  Terry stood up. The tall woman was imposing enough without her girth adding to her aggression. ‘Mrs Thomas,’ he began, but before he could explain, Sylvia butted in. ‘He’s throwing me over for some floozy he’s met.’

  Terry glanced down at her, ‘Sylv, I’ve just explained – I’ve never thought of us in that way. We’re just friends. Have been since we were kids. You, me, Amy and Billy from down the road. I mean – ’ he spread his hands in a helpless gesture – ‘I really don’t know how you could have thought it was anything more.’

  Sylvia bit her lip. The tales she’d told Amy and her parents were now coming back to haunt her. If she said now half as much as she’d made up in the past, then Terry wouldn’t hesitate to call her a liar.

  But blithely unaware of her daughter’s fantasizing, Mabel blundered in. ‘From what she’s said to us, it’s been a mite more than just friendly, Terry Price. You’ve led her on. She’s an innocent, I’ll grant you, but you shouldn’t have led her on to think there was more to it than you intended. You’ve hurt her and humiliated our whole family. What the neighbours are going to say, I daren’t think.’

  ‘I’ve not led her on, Mrs Thomas. It’s all in her imagination.’

  ‘You calling her a liar? ’Cos if you are, I’ll get my Percy to deal with you.’

  ‘Leave it, Mam. He’s not worth it. Let him have his floozy. He’ll likely get more than he bargained for if what they say about them clippies is owt to go by.’

  ‘Now look—’ Terry began, but Mrs Thomas grasped his arm and began to push him towards the back door.

  ‘You’d better go, but you haven’t heard the last of this yet, m’lad.’

  Twenty-Seven

  ‘It was just the same – exactly the same – as you said it was with Bob,’ Terry told Peggy later when he met her as she came off her shift. The city’s transport system was now more or less back to as normal. Terry linked his arm through Peggy’s and they walked through the darkening streets together. ‘Why can’t a lad and a girl be just friends without everyone reading more into it than there is?’

  Peggy sighed. ‘That’s just it. I’m beginning to think that they can’t be.’

  ‘Well, that’s daft. Me and Sylv had a lot of fun together. We used to go out as a foursome. Me, Sylv, my mate Billy and my kid sister, Amy. She’s Sylvia’s best friend, so it’s making life very awkward. I’m getting called everything from a pig to a dog.’ Terry held his tongue about what Sylvia had said about Peggy. Rumours always ran rife about romances and affairs when a group of men and women worked together. But he didn’t believe gossip, especially not about his girl. ‘They’re saying I’ve thrown her over. Peg, I was just friends with her – I promise you.’ He squeezed her arm to his side. ‘I’ve never felt about Sylvia the way I feel about you. You do believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do, because – like you say – it’s the same thing I’m going through with Bob. I mean, we kissed, but never – well, you know—’ Her voice faded away and she blushed in the darkness. Terry stopped and drew her into the shadows of a doorway. He kissed her longingly. ‘It was good last night, wasn’t it? I know it was the first time for you and – if I tell you summat – promise you won’t tell a soul?’

  ‘Course not. It’s our secret.’

  ‘It was the first time for me an’ all, but don’t you go telling anyone. Twenty-two years old and never had a girl before – I’d be a laughing stock, especially with my mate, Billy. To hear him bragging, you’d reckon he’s had half the girls in Sheffield.’

  Peggy giggled. ‘I’ve overheard some of the chaps at work talk like that – even the married ones – when they don’t know I’ve been listening. But I reckon if a girl fluttered her eyelashes at some of them they’d run a mile.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll walk you home. You know I’ve got to go back tomorrow. I don’t suppose there’s any way we can be alone tonight, is there?’

  ‘Can’t we go to your place again?’

  ‘No. Dad’ll go to the pub as usual, but Mam – and Amy too probably – will be at home.’

  ‘Our house is never empty. Even if the others were out, there’s always Gran at home.’

  ‘Mm. I don’t suppose . . .’

  Peggy shook her head firmly. ‘If she even knew what we’d been up to last night, she’d throw me out.’

  He stopped and kissed her again. ‘Oh, Peg, you don’t
know how much I love you.’

  When they parted at her doorway, Terry promised to get home on leave again as soon as he could.

  ‘Write to me, please,’ Peggy begged, but Terry only shook his head. ‘All our letters are censored. I don’t want prying eyes reading the sort of thing I want to say to you.’

  ‘Can’t I write to you, though?’

  ‘Best not, but I’ll be home again soon. I promise. But never forget – I love you.’

  As spring gave way to a reluctant summer, the household of women settled into a routine, but it was not the old routine. Sheffielders had seen their homes destroyed in two nights of heavy bombing and few lives would ever be the same again. And they weren’t the only ones whose lives were altered irrevocably. London, Southampton, Liverpool, Hull – even Belfast and Clydebank – they, and many more, had suffered appalling damage and loss of life. And certainly things would never be the same in Grace Booth’s household.

  ‘We’ll never get over this,’ she would mutter, but the family had no idea of knowing whether she meant the destruction of her city or the turmoil in her family that had been an unexpected result of that first night. The air raids had wreaked havoc in people’s lives that went far beyond the obliteration of homes and workplaces. Many families had lost loved ones and the blitz would never be forgotten – or forgiven. And the ripple effect still went on. Through Rose, Peggy heard that Bob had received his papers and had left to go for basic training. ‘He’s been sent to somewhere in Scotland,’ Rose informed the family, not speaking directly to Peggy but knowing she was listening. ‘Why ever do they send them so far away?’

  ‘To stop them nipping on the first train back home, of course,’ Grace said.

  ‘His mother is devastated.’ Rose glared at Peggy. ‘If owt happens to him . . .’ She left the accusation hanging in the air.

  With both Terry and now Bob gone, both sisters felt very lonely and the tension between them prevented them being a comfort to each other as they might have been. And Mary was affected by her daughters’ quarrel. She’d always hated confrontation of any kind. She tried to coax both Peggy and Rose to sort out their differences. ‘It’s affecting us all and I don’t like it.’

  ‘It’s not me, Mam, it’s Rose,’ Peggy assured her. ‘I’ve tried to talk to her, but she won’t listen.’

  Rose merely shrugged her shoulders and reiterated stubbornly, ‘She shouldn’t have treated Bob so badly.’

  ‘Well, you seem to be taking over where she left off in that direction.’

  Rose glared at her mother. ‘All right, I admit it. I like him, I always have, but while she’s around he won’t look at me. All he wants to do is talk about Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. And his mother’s nearly as bad, moaning about what a lovely daughter-in-law she thought Peggy would have been.’

  ‘Oh darling . . .’ Mary began, but Rose turned away and all her mother could do was put on her uniform and go to work. At least for a few hours the hectic routine of a clippie’s life took her mind off her family’s troubles. Rose was acting so out of character. She’d always been the one to laugh off any petty squabbles, but now she was the instigator of a deep rift between the sisters that was affecting the whole family. Mary sighed inwardly. Rose was so obviously in love with Bob herself and she must be hurting too, but Mary didn’t know how to help her, how to help either of her daughters. Maybe Laurence . . . ? Mary quickened her step, hoping that she would bump into the inspector at dinnertime in the canteen. She knew that at least he would be sympathetic to all her woes.

  Grace carried on as usual, determined not to allow anything to disrupt her routine.

  During the second week of May she read of yet another dreadful bombing raid on London, but at the end of May she had a good piece of news to tell her family. ‘They’ve sunk the Bismarck.’

  Myrtle, engrossed in her schoolwork, looked up. She had end-of-term exams looming and now the excitement of her feuding sisters had settled down to frosty looks and long silences between them, she’d buried herself once more in her studies. ‘The one that sunk the Hood a few days ago?’

  Grace nodded grimly. ‘They’ve been hunting her ever since.’

  ‘D’you think it could be a turning point?’

  ‘Who’s to know?’ Grace murmured as she read on.

  ‘Was there much loss of life?’

  ‘I expect so,’ Grace said solemnly. They were silent for a few moments. Even enemy sailors were someone’s father, husband or son.

  ‘What a waste,’ Myrtle murmured. ‘I hope Simon Bradshaw’s safe.’

  ‘Oh, the one that’s in the navy? Yes, I hope so too. But we’ve no idea that he was involved in that.’

  ‘I know, but he’s out there somewhere, isn’t he? Somewhere at sea and in danger.’ She sighed and turned back to her books whilst Grace turned her attention to the battle raging in Crete. This was, indeed, a war that involved most of the world.

  Would it ever end? And who would be the victor?

  The days passed and neither Peggy nor Rose heard from the men they were so anxious about and Rose’s mood grew ever more fractious. ‘You’d’ve thought Bob’d’ve written. He’s not even sent word to his mother.’

  ‘Maybe they’re not allowed to.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft, Mam, of course they’re allowed to.’

  Grace rattled her newspaper. ‘Don’t talk to your mother like that.’

  Tentatively Peggy ventured, ‘Terry said that all their letters – and ours – go through a censor. They read everything. That’s why he won’t write.’

  ‘I bet he’s writing to his family,’ Rose said spitefully, ‘oh, I’m forgetting. You can’t ask them, can you?’

  ‘Now, girls, please stop this bickering,’ Mary said. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘And I won’t have it,’ Grace declared, frowning at them over the top of her paper. ‘Not in my house.’

  ‘Where does he live, this Terry?’ Rose asked.

  Peggy bit her lip. ‘In a terraced road in Attercliffe.’

  When Rose pulled a face, Peggy defended the Price family. ‘His father works in the steelworks and his mother’s very house-proud.’ She didn’t tell them that the Prices’ house was much smaller than theirs. She lifted her head defiantly. ‘His home is rather like the one where the Deetons live.’

  Rose glared at her but couldn’t – for once – think of a suitably cutting retort.

  Summer seemed a long time in coming; May continued as April had been – very cool and dull. June brought the sun, but the family scarcely seemed to notice. Only Grace took her folding chair out into the back yard and lifted her face to its warmth.

  Bob was the first to arrive home on leave towards the end of June. He sat opposite Grace beside the fire, twirling his army cap in his hands.

  ‘So, young man, how was it?’

  ‘Pretty tough, Mrs Booth, but I’m with a good bunch of lads, though I shouldn’t think we’ll all stay together when we get our postings.’

  ‘D’you know where that’ll be yet?’

  Bob shook his head.

  ‘And even if you did – ’ Grace smiled – ‘you couldn’t tell me.’

  Bob laughed. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Good to see you smile again, lad,’ Grace said, with her customary bluntness. ‘I reckon joining up was the best thing you could have done.’

  ‘My mam doesn’t think so.’

  ‘Well, no, she won’t and I can understand why. Just look after yourself for her sake, eh?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Grace laid her paper down on her lap and looked directly across the hearth between them. ‘Now, Bob, while we’re on our own, there’s something I want to ask you. I’m being a nosy old woman, I know that, but I have my granddaughters’ best interests at heart.’

  Bob didn’t know whether she was talking about one or two of her granddaughters, but he kept silent.

  ‘We were all sorry about what happened between you and Peggy – I want you to know that – but
it’s happened and life goes on.’

  ‘You don’t think she’ll ever come back to me then?’

  ‘No, lad, I don’t.’ Grace’s tone was surprisingly gentle. ‘But where you’re concerned it’s Rose I’m bothered about.’

  ‘Rose?’ Bob was obviously startled.

  Grace regarded him steadily with her head on one side. ‘Surely, you must realize how Rose feels about you or have you been so wrapped up in Peggy that you haven’t noticed?’

  ‘Rose and – and me?’

  ‘Oh yes, plain as the nose on your face how Rose feels about you. Always has done, I suspect, though she’d never have done anything about it if you and Peggy had stayed together.’

  His cap twirled even faster between fingers that were obviously nervous now. ‘Rose,’ he murmured again and the expression in his eyes looked as if a light had been suddenly turned on inside his head.

  ‘It’s her you’ve come round to see, I take it,’ Grace said pointedly.

  ‘Er – well – yes. Of course. She’s been a good friend to me since—’ He paused and was thoughtful for a few moments.

  ‘Bob – you’re a good lad, a nice lad,’ Grace said firmly and added, as only someone of her age and with her wisdom could have done, ‘but it’s time you forgot about Peggy, and you and Rose would make a nice couple. Oh, I know.’ She held up her hand. ‘I’m a meddling old woman, but at least she’d be someone to write to when you’re away and to see when you come home.’

  ‘Well – yes. That’d be – nice,’ he agreed, with a faraway look in his eyes. Rose, Bob was thinking. If what her grandmother was saying was true, then . . . It’d be nice to have a girl waiting for him back home, to boast about to the other lads and to write to and get letters from her. And Rose was a nice-looking lass. Pretty, though not in Bob’s mind quite as pretty as Peggy was. But he must try to forget about Peggy. She was lost to him. Even her family seemed to have accepted that now. So, when Rose came flying in through the door a few moments later, Bob stood up and smiled at her. ‘Hello, Rose. I’ve got a seventy-two-hour leave. Would you like to come to the pictures?’